Dissatisfied with the performance by self-help groups supplying midday meals for schoolchildren, the BMC is considering appointing a renowned religious trust and a major NGO for the job.
The issue cropped up this week when nearly 500 children were taken ill after they consumed cupcakes provided at Anjuman Noorul Islam School at Saki Naka in Andheri (East).
“We have decided to cancel all contracts with self-help groups and appoint ISKCON and Akshaya Patra,” Rahul Shewale, chairman of the civic standing committee, said.
Shewale said the two organisations have asked for at least 10 centres from which they can operate the kitchen facility, so that they can provide freshly prepared, hot meals to the children and under tight security. “We will finalise this soon,” said Shewale.
For some time now, there has been a need for a reliable set-up for school meals. But this has not worked out because many corporators favoured groups in their areas to do the job. Worse, the BMC hasn’t been able to maintain an effective check on the quality of food prepared by these groups.
About 244 different organisations have been contracted to provide meals to about 3.8 lakh students and ISKCON Food Relief Foundation provides for about 1 lakh students in 1,174 civic schools.
The ISKCON foundation also operates in 10 states, while Akshaya Patra Foundation manages meals for underprivileged children in nine states.
Civic sources said self-help groups were eating into the share of food grains provided by the Centre for the midday meals. Each child is entitled to 400 grams of rice. “But children don’t eat so much rice. The self-help groups claim the grains and sell it in the market. They don’t even provide similar quality of other nutritious food,” sources said.
Manoj Kotak, chairman of the BMC’s education committee, assured that these allegations will be investigated. “Initially, all political parties wanted their workers to get the contracts, but now most corporators agree that self-help groups are not doing a proper job. The senior leaders are seriously looking at a centralised kitchen as the only answer,” he said.
Monitoring meals
After the midday meal tragedy in Bihar in August, the BMC had instructed each school to constitute a committee of a teacher, a parent, a student and one PTA or management member to monitor the scheme. The parent and student members are to change every week.
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